Murder Cases in 33 Large Urban Counties in the United States, 1988 (ICPSR 9907)

This study was conducted in an effort to better understand
the circumstances surrounding murder cases in large urban areas. To
evaluate the 75 largest counties in the nation, 33 counties were
chosen. The ranking of these counties was based on a combination of
crime data and population data. The criteria for including a case on a
roster from which cases would be sampled was that (1) one or more
defendants must have been arrested for murder and (2) the case must
have been adjudicated during 1988. These cases were a sample of about
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This study was conducted in an effort to better understand
the circumstances surrounding murder cases in large urban areas. To
evaluate the 75 largest counties in the nation, 33 counties were
chosen. The ranking of these counties was based on a combination of
crime data and population data. The criteria for including a case on a
roster from which cases would be sampled was that (1) one or more
defendants must have been arrested for murder and (2) the case must
have been adjudicated during 1988. These cases were a sample of about
half of all those in the 33 counties studied that had a murder charge
brought to the prosecutors in 1988, or earlier, and that were disposed
during 1988. When statistically weighted, the sample cases represent a
total of 9,576 murder defendants in the nation's 75 largest counties.
Demographic information on victims and defendants includes sex, date of
birth, area of residence, and occupation. Variables are also provided
on the circumstances of the crime, including the relationship between the
victim and the defendant, the type of weapon used, the time of death,
and the number of victims.

Access Notes

The public-use data files in this collection are available for access by the general public.
Access does not require affiliation with an ICPSR member institution.

Study Description

Citation

U.S. Dept. of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics. MURDER CASES IN 33 LARGE URBAN COUNTIES IN THE UNITED STATES, 1988. ICPSR version. Washington, DC: U.S. Dept. of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics [producer], 1988. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 1996. http://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR09907.v1

Scope of Study

Universe:
Murder cases adjudicated in 1988 in the 75 largest counties
of the United States.

Data Types:
event/transaction data

Methodology

Sample:
The 33 counties included in this collection were chosen by
stratified sampling to represent the 75 largest counties in the nation.
In counties with less than 200 murder cases adjudicated in 1988, all
cases were chosen. In counties with more than 200 murder cases, random
sampling was used to select 200 cases.

Data Source:

murder data from prosecutors' offices

Version(s)

Original ICPSR Release:1993-10-11

Version History:

2006-01-12 All files were removed from dataset 5 and flagged as study-level files, so that they will accompany all downloads.

2005-11-04 On 2005-03-14 new files were added to one
or more datasets. These files included additional setup files as well
as one or more of the following: SAS program, SAS transport, SPSS portable,
and Stata system files. The metadata record was revised 2005-11-04 to
reflect these additions.

1996-11-21 A variable description list was added to the
introduction in the codebook.

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